For a car to drive around a race track in a competitively quick time, it must sustain as high a speed as possible at all points on the track. Given the fixed characteristics of the car, driving at high speed is principally facilitated by driving as smooth a line as possible within the bounds of the track surface. This subjective line is often called the “racing line”.
Such a racing line may be well estimated by a skilled driver. An obvious approach would be via experimental practice on the track in question. Alternatively, an approximate line could be drawn by study of a diagram of the track.
In racing video games, such as on a desktop computer, video game console, or other system, a player typically maneuvers a racer along a track in a virtual environment. Exemplary racers may include race cars or other vehicles, player avatars, and other racing entities. Furthermore, racing typically includes a competitive characteristic, for example, racing for speed or accuracy (e.g., through gates), jumping for distance, racing with fuel conservation goals, and dog-fighting. Additionally, a racer may be challenged by other competitors, either actual players, or an artificial competitor generated by the computer operating under an artificial intelligence (AI) program. Such competitive characteristics can challenge the player in controlling the racer along a path, such as a race track or other route.
There are certain scenarios, such as the design of a driving simulation in a video game, where it may be necessary to estimate racing lines for many tracks (perhaps hundreds in the case of a video game that allows players to select among multiple particular tracks to race) or different racers (e.g., a Volkswagen Beetle versus a Formula One racer). Racing lines are followed by AI racers when a player is competing against the computer system rather than other players. It may be necessary to design several lines per track for AI racers for various reasons (e.g., for variety and to allow overtaking).
A racing line may be determined statically from data storage or computed dynamically, both on a track by track basis. For example, each track may be associated with its own suggested driving line, which is retrieved from data storage and applied to the track selected for the race. Racing lines may be manually determined or “drawn” by a developer. Alternatively, a racing line may be individually computed using geometric techniques for different tracks. Design of multiple racing lines is clearly a time-consuming, labor-intensive, and potentially error-prone task.